Marilyn Manson (initially Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids) are an American rock band founded in 1989. Most of their music technically falls under industrial rock with some metal elements, but the band are best known as shock rockers, with their graphic imagery and ruthless attacks on the mainstream media winning them a reputation of the kind seldom seen before in music. In fact, the moral panic against them was so great that they were blamed for the Columbine massacre by sections of the media, under the belief that the killers had been inspired by their music.

On the surface, this seems like an easy mistake to make. Throughout their career, Marilyn Manson have made good use of explicit live shows, controversial lyrics and outright bizarre music videos. The songs are cynical, with many lampooning conformism, social hierarchy and the media, amongst other things. Nothing was off limits, including certain members of the band's own fanbase. Despite this, in true industrial metal fashion, several of the songs and most of the videos don't give their meaning up easily, and are open to multiple interpretations.

Due to the fact that the band name is also the lead singer's stage name, Marilyn Manson is one of the most notorious examples of I Am the Band in existence. Many people are not, in fact, aware that they are a band and credit all the group's music to the singer alone. This has become more prominent over time, to the point where Marilyn Manson the person has become a household name, yet the other band members are known only by fans, ex-fans and (some) music critics. The number of them doesn't help -- Marilyn Manson's line up changes almost constantly, and they have gone through 17 guitarists, bassists, drummers and keyboardists in just 20 years. This has often been attributed by those who have worked with him to (among other things) Manson thinking, well, that he is the band and the others are just there to provide background scenery for him.

The cover for Portrait Of An American Family was originally intended to be a picture of a naked baby (Manson himself), to show that an innocent baby photo can and will be interpreted as "pornographic". In itself this would have been an effective statement; however the proposed cover was indeed deemed pornographic by relevant authorities, and was thus not used. The censorship of the image only proved the point the band was trying to make, rather than diminishing it.

Similarly, the cover for Holy Wood depicts a violent and bloody image of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and was thus censored by the bands label. It was originally designed to show how violent the popular scene actually is, and the act of censoring only further emphasised the violent nature of the religious parable.

Cloudcuckoolander: In most of his earlier interviews, bassist/guitarist Twiggy was a Grade A example of this trope. Mostly he sat swaying slightly, fiddling with his clothing and staring at the ceiling, rarely speaking unless addressed directly, at which point he would reply with a nonsensical comment (one interview with Manson and Twiggy had the latter saying only "Whiskey and speed", and only answering a couple of questions with a coherent answer, before going back to "Whiskey and speed"), and in one case, only played an audio clip with a tape player. Nobody knows whether he did this intentionally as part of his stage persona, or whether he was just semi-permanently high.

Concept Album: Antichrist Superstar, Mechanical Animals and Holy Wood actually form a trilogy about main character of all three albums. Chronologically in the narrative, however, it goes in reverse order.

Somewhat debatable as to the order of the albums. Interpretations of the "Triptych" are an Epileptic Trees forest.

Cowboy Bebop at His Computer: Marilyn Manson is not a goth band, and they have never claimed to be so. It seems as though only reason people think they are a goth band is because the media kept saying they were. The makeup, nail polish, black clothing, and stereotypical "darkness" of the band didn't help much. The music video for Tainted Love also does not help, what with it being filled with goth kids and all (one even wearing a shirt stating "Nothing but a G(oth) Thing").

Dark Is Not Evil: His darkness and use of demonic imagery is just part of his image, his public persona. He really is a pretty nice guy.

Your Mileage May Vary if you've worked with him. Or for him. Especially if you've tried to get paid after working with him or for him.

Demoted to Extra: Roli Mosimann was chosen to produce Portrait of an American Family due to his work with Swans, but he turned in a flat and lifeless mix. As an Author's Saving Throw, Trent Reznor (who agreed with Manson that the mix "sucked") brought them to LA for seven weeks of remixing and re-recording, and Mosimann was demoted to "engineer" in the album credits.

Recurring Riff: In Born Villain, the opening vocal growl from "No Reflection" is repeated in full in "The Gardener" and partially in "Disengaged".

Record Producer: Manson has had a co-producer credit on every album, but he's always gotten assistance from others - Trent Reznor (Portrait of an American Family, Antichrist Superstar[1]), MichaelBeinhorn (Mechanical Animals), Dave Sardy (Holy Wood), Ben Grosse (The Golden Age of Grotesque, which was co-produced by bandmate Tim Skold), and others.

Religion Rant Song: "The Fight Song", "Cake and Sodomy" and "The Reflecting God", among others.

Shout-Out: The "Inauguration of the Worm" and "Disintegrator Rising" cycles from Antichrist Superstar are references to Kenneth Anger's films Inauguration of the Pleasuredome and Lucifer Rising.

The line "We're from America/where we eat our young" sounds like a reference to Funkadelic's album America Eats Its Young.

Rather Hate Dumb-ishly, the chorus of "(m)OBSCENE" was accused of being too imitative of the chorus of Faith No More's "Be Aggressive", "The Fight Song" was accused of being a Jimmy Harted"Song 2" and "Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes" is occasionally charged with ripping offMinistry's "Burning Inside".

Take That: Unusually, there was one aimed at a section of the band's own fans. The song "This Is the New Shit" was written about fans who didn't even try to understand the point behind the band's music, preferring to just cheer everything indiscriminately.

A Threesome Is Manly: Rare all-male example in the "(s)AINT" video, with Marilyn Manson engaging in a threeway with former bassist Gidget Gein and CSI's Eric Szmanda.

Ubermensch: Manson (the person) sees himself as one of these and plays this role in Antichrist Superstar.

Vocoder: Used to terrifying effect in the outro of "Cryptorchid" and the chorus of "Kinderfeld."

We Used to Be Friends: Manson was close friends with Trent Reznor, who got them on his Nothing Records label, produced their first two albums and generally helped promote them. Then, at some point they had a pretty drastic falling out, and despite a short reconciliation around 1999-2000 (enough for Manson to make a cameo in the "Starfuckers, Inc." video and play a concert together), they pretty quickly went back to not being on such good terms anymore. Trent took a potshot or two at Manson, mocking his "Personal Jesus" cover when responding to a fan's question, and Manson's still angry because the Nothing people lost the master tracks for his first three albums[2]. The whole feud's died down somewhat since, even if they're not gonna start being friendly again anytime soon.

Manson's respective friendships with Daisy Berkowitz and Madonna Wayne Gacy also seem to have gone down in flames quite spectacularly. Then again, lawsuits will do that.

↑This one also included Sean Beavan and Dave Ogilvie, from the NIN camp

↑This wasn't strictly Trent's fault, as he got involved in a lawsuit with his former manager and gave up the label. Also, Rob Sheridan had to completely re-do the artwork for the Pretty Hate Machine remaster because Gary Talpas' original was lost by the Nothing staff as well